Travel Expense Will Grow In Importance

The 21st century is an interesting period of paradoxes. On the one hand, the digital revolution has made it possible for businesses to reach out and expand their operations to new clients and customers all over the world. On the other hand, this ability to reach out to much more of the world has necessitated the need to more frequently go to those other parts of the world.

There’s a two part reason for this. One is that many countries like the USA and Canada have mature markets that can sometimes be difficult to expand on. The other is that new opportunities often exist abroad, and that means securing essential partnerships. And this means more expense reports need to be filed.

Expense Control

One of the inevitable consequences of an increase in sending employees abroad for working trips is an increase in the amount of expenses they occur. Many of these expenses are necessary, such as financing their transportation to and from the destination, as well ensuring they have a place to stay and sleep, and sufficient funds so they can eat while traveling. Then there are less concrete expenses, such as the entertainment of clients, or the miscellaneous stationary expenses for printing. All of this spending needs to be accounted for to correctly document and analyze your financial activity.

But at the same time, all of it can be much more difficult to accurately document during the hectic activity of a business trip. Sometimes the expense reports may have “gaps” simply because of a lack of time. Other situations, more worryingly, may be deliberately misreported in an attempt to exploit the lack of oversight that comes from being far away from the home office.

Accurate Reporting

A report by CFO Research Services stated that 173 North American businesses will be exerting more controls on their travel-related spending in the next two years. The reason for this is simple; the importance of work related travel is on the increase, but most companies have, up until now, paid little attention to ensuring tight safeguards are in place to reduce error and prevent system abuse.

Automated expense report software is one of the ways that companies can start integrating a system that can be quickly learned, implemented, and has simple rules for compliance that will make it easy for employees to fill out reports without wasting too much time. However, these same systems offer a level of access to all members of staff that gives a clear picture of how money is being spent, and is centralized with online storage, so that the information can be retrieved anytime, anywhere. This makes it far more difficult for people with less honest intentions to deceive the system without the discrepancies being discovered very quickly.

With expense report software, companies enjoy an easy, integrated and organised financial reporting solution, while employees benefit from a less tedious system of reporting. They accurately file their reports quickly, as it happens, and malicious employees find it far more difficult to exploit the system.